Luckily, I can’t say there have been many times in my life when something amazing and beautiful has happened, only to be quickly proceeded by something horrific.
But this particular day at the beach in Mexico was one of those days.
I was stood in the kitchen of the beach house we were looking after (probably baking something chocolate-filled because, let’s face it – when am I not baking something chocolate-filled?) and I looked out of the window to the beach. Something was pulling itself up the beach from the sea.
Wait…oh my God…that’s a giant turtle!!
Cue swell of awe and amazement.
All I kept thinking was “people pay good money to see fantastic things like this and I am getting to experience it for free, right outside of my window!”
I called to Scott and we both stood at the gate at the bottom of the garden just watching the turtle crawl up the sand and start digging a hole to lay her eggs (something they apparently usually do at night).
I took some photos but was mindful of the fact that I knew that the locals will dig up and eat turtle eggs if they find the tracks of the mother (they are considered a delicacy in Mexico), so I was particularly glad that it was low season and no-one was really around. I tried not to get too close or to let anyone who may have been watching know what I was doing.
The dogs we were looking after were barking excitedly at the gate, knowing that something unusual was going on and feeling a little freaked out by this new intruder on their beach, but happy to keep their distance.
The female turtle continued to flap her fins and wiggle her bum, trying to dig her hole deeper.
Eventually, after around fifteen minutes of “ooh-ing” and “aah-ing” and hugging each other with the amazement of it all, we knew that this would probably be a lengthy process (several hours) and that we couldn’t stand there watching her all afternoon.
Even as we turned to go back in the house, I was worried about her laying her eggs like this in broad daylight, when any number of predators could attack her.
Little did I know just what kind of predator would get her – one of my favourite animals in the world. A dog.
Scott had been sat outside, playing with our dogs, when I heard him shout something to me.
“Come quick and look at this! That guy who walks his dogs on the beach every day is coming…and his dogs are getting really freaked out by the turtle!”
Next line I heard from his mouth was “Uh oh…the turtle really seems in distress”
I ran out of the house. Just as I did, I saw one of the dogs was trying to bite the turtle’s fins and was barking at it like it was scared.
I screamed. And then I nearly burst into tears. And then I nearly puked.
“SCOTT RUN!! Quick!!! It’s killing the turtle!!!”
Scott ran onto the beach as fast as he could and I could no longer contain our three dogs – they knew something was wrong and after they had heard the fear in my voice they had vaulted the fence after Scott in order to protect him from whatever was happening on the beach.
Scott managed to scare the attacking dog away just by running up to it – something the owner had apparently not been able to do (which begs the question – if his dogs are too strong for him physically in situations like this, why the hell does he walk them off the leash?) Our dogs also started barking at the other dogs and the female turtle, who was by this time distressed and trying to make her way back to the sea.
I saw Scott and the guy talking and the turtle shuffling back to the water’s edge. Scott wouldn’t let me come down because he knew I would either get too upset or too angry at the guy and start shouting.
When he returned, he told me that it looked as though the turtle had made it back to the safety of the sea, but that she had had a cut on her fin where the dog had bitten her. Apparently the dog owner had told Scott that he had probably saved the turtle’s life by scaring his own dog away, but had then gone on to make an inappropriate joke about his dog “not having eaten that day”.
I was livid and felt sick.
We figured that the turtle had not had time to lay any eggs since the whole thing had gone down within an hour of her arriving on the beach, but we will never know if she survived.
We never saw the dog walker or his dogs again before we left the beach house. He was probably too ashamed to show his face. I hate to say it, but I honestly believe that if we hadn’t been there, he would have let his dog kill the turtle.
I went to bed that night with horrible visions in my head of the dog attacking the turtle, but realising that I had also witnessed something beautiful and felt honoured that she had chosen the little spot of sand outside our house to come and lay her eggs.
I guess that’s the beauty and the horror of nature – there will always be predators and there will always be prey. I just hope I don’t ever have to see something like that again.
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